


Violette and Siger

by OssaCordis



Series: The Holmes Family Chronicle [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Backstory, Childhood, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family, Gen, Kidfic, Motherhood, Origin Story, References to Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Unhappy marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OssaCordis/pseuds/OssaCordis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>December 1968 to January 1976: how Mummy met Father, and the origin of the Holmes brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Violette and Siger

**Author's Note:**

> The modern-day incarnations of Sherlock Holmes et al. belong to Steven Moffat, Mark Gatiss, and the BBC. The plot of this story and any original characters belong to me.

 

 

I do not love you except because I love;  
I go from loving you to not loving you,  
From waiting to not waiting for you  
My heart moves from cold to fire.

I love you only because it's you the one I love;  
I hate you deeply, and hating you  
Bend to you, and the measure of my changing love for you  
Is that I do not see you but love you blindly.

Maybe January light will consume  
My heart with its cruel  
Ray, stealing my key to true calm.

In this part of the story I am the one who  
Dies, the only one, and I will die of love because I love you,  
Because I love you, Love, in fire and blood.

-Pablo Neruda-

* * *

 

**December 1968**

Few people would ever call Siger Holmes handsome, but he is tall, and has thin, masculine lips and icy grey eyes that spark with a certain kind of cruel wit. Violette Mathews is almost instantly willing to overlook his slightly receding hairline and the portents of a softening belly, though, when he casually strides up to her in December of 1968 and says with a smirk, “Am I to understand you are the girl with the _Escherichia coli_?”

Violette smiles blandly at him, one hand curled opportunistically around a rapidly flattening glass of champagne, ready to toss it in his face if she decides she doesn’t like the cut of his jib after all. “Nice topic for a Christmas party.”

Siger says nothing in return, but his smirk deepens, and he reaches past Violette to intercept two fresh glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter. Violette downs the remains of her glass, and exchanges it for a new one from Siger. “The _lac_ operon,” Violette explains, sneaking in yet another sip between her words. “ _E. coli_ is an excellent model for it. My mentor at Oxford – Dr. Kidder – is currently leading several fascinating projects to study the promoter regions of _lac_ genes.”

“Rather riding on the coattails of Jacob and Monod, isn’t he?” Siger asks, raising one eyebrow in a thick, smooth arc as he examines Violette over the rim of his glass. He hasn’t taken a single sip yet.

Violette flushes slightly, and turns away to watch yet another tray of champagne dreamily float by in the arms of a waiter.

“Oh, don’t be cross,” Siger laughs. “I’m sure your work is worth a Nobel Prize, too. I’m Siger Holmes by the way, a family friend of the Folletts, who are friends with the Kidders. Hence my invitation tonight. And I can deduce your invitation was not only because you are Paul Kidder’s prize student, but also because Mrs. Kidder is quite fond of your mother’s virtuoso violin performances, or perhaps more fond of being thought of as part of the cultural elite. She would like tickets for the next performance of the Sarasate concertos at Royal Albert Hall, by the way.”

Violette turns back to Siger, a small smile returning to her face. “Doubtless. I know as well as you that graduate students are typically not invited to these sorts of things.” She extends her free hand to Siger, expecting a handshake, and is secretly delighted when he presses it to his lips instead.  “Violette Mathews, though I think you already know that. But how do you know who my mother is, and about Mrs. Kidder being a greedy little bitch?”

Siger lets out a short huff of laughter. “There’s a stack of LPs sitting on the speakers in the next room, and one of them has a picture of Anaïs Mathews on the cover. She has a certain fleck in her left iris, which is just like the fleck in your eye.” His index finger hovers delicately over her left cheek, pointing accusingly at the evidence. “Highly unlikely for two nearly identical genetic flaws to occur in two unrelated individuals. Add to that the fact that you were invited to a rather prestigious party, though you are very young, and forgive me for saying so, but not particularly important or famous. Therefore, you must be related to someone who is: Anaïs Mathews. Likely her daughter, if a certain genetic flaw is anything to go by. And finally, I overheard Mrs. Kidder chatting to another couple tonight about the Sarasate performances earlier tonight. So we have a motive, too. And that’s not cheating, eavesdropping on other people’s conversations. That’s just being clever.”

“And the _E. coli_?” Violette asks.

It’s Siger’s turn to flush slightly. “I must admit, I asked Paul about you earlier tonight, as well. Though I had deduced your connection to Anaïs Mathews first.”

Violette smiles, a genuine, warm expression. “Is this your party trick? ‘Deducing’ people.”

“Hardly. More useful at work than at parties, really.” Siger ducks his thin lips to his champagne glass and takes his first sip. “Abominable, this. We used to steal better stuff from the shops when I was at Eton. Do you like it?”

Violette shrugs. She’s not a sommelier, by a long stretch, but she certainly enjoys drinking. “It’s tolerable. Are you a scientist, too, then?”

Siger deposits the offending glass on a nearby end table. “No, I’m a barrister, I’m afraid. With pretentions to diplomacy.”

“Oh, I know who you are!” Violette exclaims. “See, I can be a bit clever, too. Your father is Sir Bartleby Holmes, isn’t he? The politician?”

“And a plague on us all.” Siger rolls his eyes in a way that reminds Violette of an adolescent boy. “Listen, it’s rather noisy in here. Lots of people talking about _lac_ operons and all that. Would you like to pop out rather early with me, and go someplace more interesting?”

Violette knows what he is really asking as he scans her with those slightly frightening, exciting grey eyes. And she has had quite a lot to drink, and has never been particularly responsible when it comes to little things like boys or men. But she’s in a good mood tonight, too, the best she has felt in weeks. And she wouldn’t mind irritating Mrs. Kidder, even if Dr. Kidder will complain to her all next week in the laboratory if she has offended his wife. Oh, what does it matter? She can get the silly, pretentious bitch a pair of box seats to the Royal Albert Hall if it will shut her up. So she hooks her hand into the crook of Siger’s elbow, languorously smiles up at him, and says, “Sure, why not?”

* * *

**August 1969**

Almost exactly nine months later, Mycroft Bartleby Holmes is born to Mr. and Mrs. Siger Holmes of St. John’s Wood, London. At their wedding seven months prior, everyone had politely ignored the tiny bump under the bride’s dress, and the tense expressions in the newlyweds’ faces that could not quite be hidden with falsely photogenic smiles. But Siger’s infinitesimal smile is genuine when Mycroft’s pink, plump hand curls around one finger as he cradles the infant in his other arm.

“He looks just like you,” Violette says, but the faint tone of accusation in her voice cannot ruin this for him. Her hair is damp and plastered to her forehead, and she smells of sweat, blood, and bleached hospital linens.

“I’ll ask them for more pain medications for you, if you’d like,” Siger coolly offers.

Violette grunts a faint, unladylike tone as she shifts away from Siger, rolling onto her side. “Call my mother later, will you? She’ll want to know.”

Siger ignores her bad temper for now. It comes and goes, anyways, and he doesn’t have the time, patience, or interest to track her moods up the mountains and down the valleys of her mind. For all he knows, she will sleep for an hour, and wake filled with irrepressible joy at the birth of her son.

A son. Siger cups the infant’s head in one long hand, pulls him closer to his chest, and murmurs, “Another Holmes.”

* * *

**April 1973**

It’s the nanny’s day off. Violette crosses one leg over the other and pushes Mycroft’s hand off of her skirt. “Go play, darling. Away from the water.”

Mycroft gives a babyish pout, but when his mother fails to provide him with any more attention, he agreeably totters from the boardwalk to the beach. Violette watches for a moment, until he plunks himself down and begins dumping sand over his legs, using his fat little hands as trowels. Then she stretches her arms in the tepid, watery light of Southern France in early spring, and returns her attention to her gin and tonic and the book in her lap. It’s dog-eared, and the spine is cracked in at least a dozen places. She lets it fall open, and silently mouths the words printed there without really reading the page.

“She had resolved never again to belong to another than herself.”

It was all very well for Edna Pontellier to resolve such things, but real life was infinitely more complicated.

She often likes Siger, especially when he is safely 800 kilometres away in Paris. A week ago, he had frostily demanded that she remain in the city with him, but the temptation to run away had been too great. Even though Toulon had been a huge disappointment – nothing like the coastal city she remembers from childhood – she stubbornly refused to come back until Siger’s business in Paris had finished. And Siger, with his typical chilled intellect, had known which battles to fight, and which to let slip by.

Siger is always the smartest person in the room, which Violette sometimes finds enthralling, and other times unbearable. When Violette stands by Siger’s elbow at embassy events, and listens to his constant stream of vitriolic deductions murmured just under the level of his breath, her heart thrills. But when Siger turns his frosty grey eyes on her, and spits out those same deductions, she wants to scream. Sometimes she does. Once, she had smashed a valuable antique plate at Siger’s feet in their St. John’s Wood house. He didn’t so much as blink in response, though.

In her own way, she reflects, she does love him. It irritates her to no end. Drearily, she swirls her drink in her left hand, and then impetuously dumps it out onto the sand.

“No more booze, old girl,” she mutters to herself. She is able to keep this resolution until almost dinnertime, when an American businessman with a flawless tan and impeccable teeth offers to buy her a cocktail at the hotel bar.

* * *

**May 1975 – Part I**

Another dinner party, another endless night of fat government boors and their insipid wives. Violette sits at one end of the dinner table wearing a skilfully composed, perfectly serene smile. She nods along at all the right times as she pretends to listen to a man continuously drone about the death of the Saudi king, though her mind wanders restlessly. She could have finished her PhD by now if she hadn’t become pregnant six years ago. Terrible mother that she is, Violette thinks; she has never loved Mycroft like she knows she should. He is a precocious child, and affectionate and warm and everything that she and Siger are not. She doesn’t wish the boy any harm; in truth, it is her sincerest desire that he get away from this toxic household as soon as he can, lest he becomes a bitter, useless thing like herself.

There are so few things that bring her joy. Her main pleasure derives from deceiving Siger. She has never been able to hide her drinking or her smouldering resentment from her husband, but over the years she found a certain talent for hiding relationships from him. Siger, who is so clever and relentless in his pursuit of truth, is utterly blind when it comes to his wan little wife and matters of the heart.

Violette briefly turns away from the dull man and lets her eyes rapidly sweep over Siger. He is enthusiastically dissecting a crown roast at the head of the table and offering short, decisive observations on Vietnam to his peers and subordinates. Such a fool, for how brilliant he is, she thinks. No idea whatsoever that she’s been seeing a chemist from Richmond twice a month for almost half a year. The sex is good; the discussions about love and poetry and pharmacokinetics are better. It almost makes her want to burst out laughing right in the middle of this dinner; or, to stand up and shout at Siger, “You complete twit! Are you blind? Don’t you see what’s happening? Don’t you see that I feel nothing for you?”

But that’s not quite true, either. She’ll never leave Siger, not as long as he’ll still have her. He will always and forever be the cleverest man in the room, even when he’s blind to her infidelities. All men are allowed one flaw, she supposes. And she is his flaw. There were others before the chemist in Richmond, and there will likely be others after him. But Siger is forever, whether she likes it or not. Their marriage is a kind of sickly obsession with her, one which she cannot bring herself to truly love, or let go.

More dinner courses rotate in and out of the dining room, and then the cook comes in bearing an enormous lemon and raspberry cake. All the men cheer and call toasts to Siger and congratulate him for the umpteenth time on his latest career success – the _cause célèbre_ of the evening. Surely a promotion to some counsellorship is on the way, in another year or two. Siger accepts the praise with his same cold smile and graciously nods to each of his guests in turn, rather like a king presiding over a court of sycophants. As the cake is served, Violette slips from the room and retrieves a package from her bedroom.

Siger seems only mildly surprised when she presents it to him. “I thought you deserved rather more than a dinner as reward for your work, darling,” she says. “I hope you like it. I was going to get you a Modigliani from my cousin’s gallery, which I full well know you think are dreadful, but then I had a change of heart. I think this is more your speed.”

Siger gently unwraps the small painting. “William Callow. The Doge’s Palace. How fitting, Violette.” Underneath his composed exterior, Violette thinks she can detect a faintly impressed expression from her husband. He holds the painting up and the dinner guests make suitable noises of appreciation and admiration. After the dinner ends, the last brandies have been unceremoniously swilled down, and the guests leave, Siger retires to his study with the painting. Violette feels a painful twinge of affection for him as she watches him go.

Sometime after midnight, Violette is curled in her bed, still awake, faintly tipsy from a nightcap or two, and contemplating her next visit to the chemist in Richmond. It might be her last. There is a faint knock on her door, and then a sliver of light from the corridor as it opens.

“Vi?” Siger softly calls.

“I’m still awake,” she answers.

Siger shuts the door and silently drifts across the room. He pauses by the side of her bed, and then sits down in the dark and reaches for her shoulder. “It’s a wonderful painting.”

“I’m glad you like it. Though I really was all set to be spiteful and get you the Modigliani.”

Siger is silent for a long moment, and Violette thinks he might leave. “I wouldn’t have blamed you,” he finally says.

Violette sits up a little bit and places her hand over Siger’s. “We neither of us have been very good spouses.”

“I’ve been distant,” Siger says bluntly. It’s almost an apology.

“I’ve been cruel,” Violette says in turn.

“I think…” Violette can hear Siger swallow thickly in the dark. She can count on one hand the number of times she has heard Siger stumble over a sentence or at a loss for words. “I misused you, Vi. I think I have gotten exactly what I deserved.”

Her heart breaks a little more at that. The poor, foolish man doesn’t know how harshly she has tried to undermine him and his entire household. Each infidelity, every lie – they all weigh heavily on her now; and the heaviest thought of all is that she will not stop trying to suffocate every last breath of willpower out of this man. She might for awhile. But it will begin again. It inevitably does. He is always so invulnerable and perfect and capable, and she is always, always, always three steps behind. But not when it comes to love. There, she holds the high ground and all the weapons. And this is as much a war as it is a marriage.

Siger stretches out beside her in bed. He hasn’t entered her bedroom in months. They haven’t had sex in over a year. Violette turns to him and draws him towards her for a kiss. He is hesitant at first, and then as greedy as the smug young man she met six years prior.

* * *

**May 1975 – Part II**

Toulon is her place of refuge in times of crisis. The city is nearly sacred to her; Siger does not come here. Violette walks hand in hand with Mycroft up and down the docks of a marina so he can solemnly count the number of different types of boats. He seems particularly taken with what he solemnly informs her is a fractional rig sloop. Violette makes a mental note to look into toy sailboats for his birthday this year.

It’s chilly for April, and Violette finally resorts to picking Mycroft up and carrying him away from the marina so she can find a café and get a cup of tea. What she really wants is a tumbler filled to the brim with gin. But she is trying to be good.

Mycroft is fussy and upset to be indoors, and anxious at the separation from his father, but fairly easily placated with an enormous _pain au raisins_. She left London too quickly to even think about bringing the nanny. Damn the nanny; she’s a useless girl anyways, always sneaking out the back door when the family is in London. She seems to think no one will notice if she comes back smelling of cigarettes and lager and dirty nightclubs in Soho, but of course in a household full of Holmes, she cannot go unscathed after these pursuits. It’s a wonder she has lasted as long as she has, but she is strangely affectionate towards Mycroft, and perhaps that keeps her anchored in place. Violette dismisses the thought of the troublesome nanny from her mind and inattentively sips her tea.

“Would you like a brother or sister, ‘Croft?”

Mycroft is delicately picking the sultanas from of his pastry and collecting them on the side of his plate. He doesn’t pause or look up from his task as he answers, “No.”

Violette sighs and helps herself to a sultana. Mycroft’s chin juts forward in a diminutive impersonation of his father when Siger is annoyed. “I was saving those for last.”

Violette pops it into her mouth anyways. “I’ll get you another pastry later, darling.”

It’s almost too soon to tell; she has a hunch, but nothing more. If she is pregnant, it must have occurred within the last month. She wonders who the father is, and finds that not knowing gives her a feeling of thrill rather than dread. She had unceremoniously dropped the chemist in Richmond two weeks ago with a brief, blunt phone call. Nevertheless, this could be his child. Or perhaps Siger’s, though her husband will never know any differently. It feels like a supreme _coup d’état_ , the moment she has been working for her entire marriage. It might be a darling little girl, another Holmes woman to stand with against the onslaught of the Holmes men. Or she might install a false heir into the line of the Holmeses; it gives her a bubbling, uncontrollable sense of elation that cannot be brought down by Siger’s latest unkindness.

The William Callow painting, so dearly cherished by Siger when she presented it to him three weeks ago. The source of what almost felt like a revival of love. And so easily dismissed when it could be used as the means in a larger game designed to meet Siger’s ends. Violette supposes she should be flattered that the Prime Minister had admired her taste in art enough to install the painting in his private residence. But it felt like a particularly callous move when she found Siger at home one day at noon, wrapping the painting up in brown paper and tying it with twine.

“What are you doing?” she asked, confused. “Is there something wrong with it?”

“No, nothing at all,” Siger reassured her.

“Well, what are you doing?”

“The Prime Minister admired it when he was over the other night for dinner. I thought I would present it to him as a gift.” Siger tied the last string in place and tucked the painting under his arm.

“But… I…” Violette had nearly been at a loss for words. “I picked it out for you specifically. You said how much you liked it… you… we… I…”

Siger turned heel and proceeded to walk wordlessly out of the room.

“You don’t even like the Prime Minister!” Violette called after him, a note of hysteria rising in her voice. “Is this about the counsellorship?”

Siger’s resounding silence was answer enough.

“You love England more than you love your wife!” she finally, accusingly choked out, but the door had shut and Siger was gone.

And so when Violette had felt the first wave of what seemed to be morning sickness, she had abruptly packed up, gathered Mycroft from his infant school, and rushed to southern France. And there she had peacefully spent the last week, ignoring sporadic phone calls from Siger and her mother.

Violette is startled out of her reverie when Mycroft roughly pushes his empty plate against her saucer, and her tea slops over the side of the cup. She is warm enough now to go back outside and take another look at the sailboats with Mycroft.

She sits on a bench and watches as Mycroft parades up and down a length of dock, comparing hulls and sails. Such a clever little boy. Rather alarmingly, so much like his father already. He adores Siger, she thinks. And Siger, in return, adores him, and only him. Only for Mycroft will he make time, and soften a bit around the edges.

She tries not to, but she already loves the suspected infant in her womb so much more than anything else. Perhaps it is Siger’s after all, she thinks, and everything will stay the same. But perhaps it is not. And that gives her a frail sense of hope.

* * *

**January 1976**

Mycroft is already in the hospital when Violette arrives to give birth. Her mother, visiting the Holmes’ country house in anticipation of the delivery, had become awash with thoughtlessness in the presence of her first grandchild, whom she rarely saw. Thus, she had spent the afternoon trying to teach the boy how to ride a neighbour’s pony. It all ended in tears, of course, because Violette could have told anyone beforehand that Mycroft was not in the least bit sporty. Well, one fractured arm wouldn’t keep the boy down for too long. And there were such bigger things to contend with at the moment than a sore and fussy child.

She gives birth alone. No, not alone. There is a doctor and a nurse present. Her mother and Siger are still in the children’s ward with Mycroft. The doctor is gentle and speaks in a low, soothing voice; the nurse holds her hand and mops her brow with a dampened flannel. She fixes her eyes on a vase of flowers across the room and pushes, trying not to think.

“What are those flowers?” she finally gasps out.

“Sorry, love?” the nurse asks, confused.

“The flowers. In the vase. What are they?”

The nurse turns and looks. “Oh, those. Harebells, I think, from a hothouse. Pretty, aren’t they?”

Violette nods, and is simultaneously wracked by waves of desolation and contraction. It is a quick birth, though. In no time, the nurse is placing a clean and tightly wrapped bundle of blue in her arms.

“A boy, Mrs. Holmes!” she cheerily announces. “Look at that dark, curly hair! And did you ever see such blue eyes? He looks just like his mum!”

Violette peels the blanket back slightly, and though disappointed that it is not a girl, is relieved to see the baby looks nothing like Mycroft did after his birth. Whether or not Siger is his father is neither here nor there; he does not look like the chemist in Richmond, either. No, this infant hails strongly from Mathews side of the family, and the Vernets of France before that.

“He’s lovely,” she sighs.

“Indeed,” the nurse agrees. “I’ll just go let Mr. Holmes and Grandmum know. They’ll want to meet him. Back in a tick, dear.”

Violette is overcome with a strange wave of panic. She wants to beg the nurse not to go just yet; she doesn’t feel ready to be left alone with this little thing wrapped in a blue blanket. But the nurse is gone before she can protest. Feebly, she clutches the infant to her chest. He unwaveringly looks up at her with limpid blue eyes. He’s so silent, and curious. His little fists reach out, and clench at a loose strand of her hair. His mouth works hungrily into a pout, but he does not cry.

“I do not know what to do,” she whispers. Her heart is clenching in a funny way. She wonders if she is about to have some sort of fit. There are so many extraordinary emotions coursing through her mind, and she cannot begin to address any of them. “This is... this is too much.”

The nurse bursts back in, Siger and her mother in tow.

Anaïs coos over the infant, unusually affectionate for once in her life. Siger inspects him like property, nodding contentedly. He already has his favoured heir, Violette thinks sarcastically, but surely a spare cannot hurt.

“He looks just like my father,” Anaïs exclaims. “Horace Vernet the Second. Son of the painter, you know. All the Vernets have blue eyes like that.”

“Is that where they come from?” Siger asks casually, letting the infant grasp and mouth at his finger. “I did wonder. Mycroft looks exactly like a Holmes, of course.”

There is a brief, irritating conversation between Anaïs and Siger about which of the new baby’s features bear a resemblance to which illustrious ancestor. Violette merely holds him closer and wishes to snap that there is at least a fifty percent chance that he bears no resemblance to any Holmes whatsoever. But she holds her tongue, waiting to argue more salient points.

When the conversation dies down, she says, “I want to call him Alan.”

Siger’s brow furrows. “After your father.”

“He was a very important man. He made a lot of important discoveries in physics. It would be an honour to have a son named after him. Tell him, Mother.”

Anaïs looks very touched by Violette’s request, but she is interrupted by Siger impatiently sinking onto the bed, as if the suggestion had taken all the energy out of him. “Don’t be silly. He cannot be called ‘Alan Holmes’. Absolutely common.”

Anaïs purses her lips ever so slightly, but shrugs in deference to Siger. “Perhaps his middle name, then, Violette. It’s still an honour. Father would be delighted either way.”

Violette’s mouth unattractively gapes open, and it feels like the world has gone mad. “But... my father... you... this is important to me!”

“As a middle name, perhaps it’s not so bad,” Siger admits. “Then we would never have to speak it aloud. Well, you look absolutely exhausted, Vi. I’ll just fill out the birth certificate, then. I’m sure I can come up with something for the first name. Many generations worth of names to pick from in the Holmes family. I think my great-grandfather had a cousin he was very fond of – name started with an ‘S’ or something. The man was a brilliant chemist and botanist. Travelled around the world on a clipper ship once. Does that suit you, if you’re going for some grand meaning behind the name?”

Violette can feel tears prickling behind her eyes, but she will not let them spill over while Siger is in the room. “Fine,” she spits. “Just brilliant. Whatever you want, Siger. You always get whatever you want, anyways.”

Siger and Anaïs finally leave her in peace with the baby. ‘S’ Alan Holmes. First name to be determined. A little while later, the nurse comes by with a bottle, and they feed him together. And then they take him away to the nursery. She feels utterly drained, and collapses into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Sometime after two o’clock in the morning, she is roused by a small hand tugging on her blankets. Mycroft’s face is not ten centimetres from hers when she wakes up. His left arm is in a sling, and his face seems unnaturally slack, probably from pain medications.

“Father said the baby came,” he states. “I want to see it.”

“Shouldn’t you be in bed, darling? Aren’t you tired, or in pain?”

“I wanted to see the baby. I waited until the night nurse left her desk to get coffee, and snuck out.”

Still half-asleep, she ruffles his hair and then sits up in bed. “He’s not here, Mycroft. He’s in the nursery.”

Mycroft’s gaze is unblinking and undeterred.

“Oh, fine. We’ll just go peer in the window for a moment. I’m so tired, though, Mycroft. You need to go back to your ward immediately after.”

He nods, and waits for her to unfold out of bed. He gravely accepts her hand, and they quietly pad down the corridor to the nursery. It is poorly lit at this time of night, and Violette feels too tired to lift Mycroft, but she pushes a wheelchair to the window and Mycroft clambers up using his one good arm. There are only a couple of babies, and she immediately spots her own lying in a plastic hospital basinet. She can just make out the nametag in the darkened room – Sherlock Alan Holmes. Sherlock.

“That is your brother,” she softly whispers into Mycroft’s ear, pressing one finger to the glass window. “Sherlock. On the left.”

“Brother?” Mycroft whispers back.

“Mmm hmm,” she murmurs. “A little boy. A brother.”

Mycroft gazes intently through the window for a moment, and then looks up at Violette. “When will he do things?”

“What?” Violette asks, a smile perking at the corner of her mouth in spite of everything.

“Do things. Read. Collect insects. Visit Father’s club in London and eat toffees with me.”

“Not for awhile,” Violette says, patting Mycroft’s shoulder in consolation. “He’s still very small. He needs to be looked after. We need to protect him. You need to protect him. You are a big brother now.”

Mycroft turns back to look through the window one more time. The intensity of expression on his face would look more at home on an old man’s face. “I understand.”

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed and un-Britpicked, so please point out errors if you notice any!
> 
> The 1965 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine went to François Jacob, André Lwoff, and Jacques Monod for “…discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis.” Jacob and Monod worked with E. coli. The lac operon is a series of linked genes carried by E. coli (and some other bacterial species) which is required to produce an enzyme that metabolizes the complex sugar lactose.
> 
> Toulon is in southern France. Violette is reading “The Awakening” by Kate Chopin.
> 
> William Callow was a nineteenth century English painter/watercolorist who spent a good chunk of his career in Venice. I have no idea if he has any paintings of the Doge’s Palace or not. 
> 
> Someday, I will write the story of Mycroft and the Shetland pony. Just not yet. 
> 
> Harebells are a symbol of suppression and grief.
> 
> The Vernets were French painters, and Sherlock is supposed to be related to them in the original ACD canon. While we’re on the topic, Violet and Siger are the supposed names of Sherlock’s parents according to a number of Sherlockian enthusiasts. I’ve slightly “Francophied” Violette’s name.
> 
> Bits and pieces of this were lovingly filched and reworked from a variety books. If it reminds you of something, it probably is what you think it is. Violette draws most heavily upon Sylvia Tietjens from “Parade’s End.”


End file.
